Ice Storm From Hell
The idea that you’re just one person; how much could you possibly do, effectively dropped off the page as soon as Andy Moll joined the volunteer fire department.
One person can do a lot in this case — this case being a “massive ice storm from hell” as Moll called it. He and his four volunteer firefighters took more calls in two weeks than they had in the last year. From pouring water into people’s toilets on the ‘it’s no big deal’, casual hero, side of things — to refueling an elderly woman’s generator every 3 hours, even in the middle of the night, on the bronze statue, restoring hope for humanity, side of things. Long story short, the Greenwood Volunteer Fire Department was determined.
The ice storm hit Michigan, March 28, 2025, knocking out power for more than 319,000 electricity customers, requiring a state of emergency declaration from the Governor.
“As a firefighter, you know the calls are coming. Freezing rain was starting to build and it just sat on top of us for close to two days. It started weighing the trees down and breaking limbs, trees were falling over, taking down power lines. It was just an ice storm and excuse my french, from hell,” said Moll.
In Greenwood alone, 200 poles snapped due to the weight of the ice, leaving hundreds of miles of live wires down. Moll and his four person force began chain sawing blocked roads in an effort to answer calls. “At night during the calls, it literally sounded like bombs were going off with the white pines snapping and trees breaking from the weight of the ice. I’d never seen anything like this; the career linemen that travel to repair damage, they’ve never seen anything like it. It was an unprecedented storm.”
On day three, the temperature dropped to 10 degrees, and the ice continued to cause problems. This time it knocked out the township’s lifeline; communications for the fire house were lost. Without any way to communicate, Moll and his team continued welfare checks on foot, knocking on every door in his community.
“We had no source of communication other than our radios to dispatch but that certainly doesn’t help the residents. And I thought, oh this is a real problem.”
So he called a buddy, who called the Governor's Office, who said, “You need ITDRC.”
By that evening, ITDRC had dispatched a response team to MI and the following morning had installed satellite internet for Greenwood Township.
“The satellite internet solved a lot of problems. We were able to have a secure network for our firefighters, hold meetings, and make phone calls. We were able to communicate. The open network helped our community get back to work, and talk to their families.. it was huge! People being able to call their loved ones reassured a lot of folks.”
Three weeks later, phones are still down and people are still recovering from “the storm from hell”, but Moll sees the operation as a win for his community. He’s seen a change in his town since surviving the storm together. Moll says people are treating each other like they once did. The conversation has shifted from a terrible weather event, to talking about all the good they witnessed and the acts of service they won’t soon forget.
Moll said, “It was an unprecedented storm, but this community really came together.”
